I don’t get that at all. What was more exciting than TGO scoring 50 goals in the first 39 games of a season? Or scoring points in 51 consecutive games? Or zooming past Phil Esposito’s record and breaking the 80, and then the 90 barrier?

Come on.

I mean, Denis Savard? Yeah, he did the spin-a-rama, which might be the dumbest expression in sports. And he’s a Hall of Famer. But more exciting than 99? You kiddin’ me?

Well, at least Skid Crosby wasn’t on the list. Or isn’t at the moment.

“You gotta get on with your life. You gotta let go of the past. And Mikey, when you do, I’m telling you: the future is beautiful, alright? Look out the window. It’s sunny every day here. It’s like manifest destiny. Don’t tell me we didn’t make it. We made it! We are here. And everything that is past is prologued to this. All of the $h*t that didn’t kill us is only – you know, all that $h*t. You’re gonna get over it.”

I think the common factor on that list is the “Whoa! what the Byfuglien just happened?” effect. Most of those players have speed and the ability to bury a breakaway or go end to end at warp speed – Gretzky never had the same speed as these guys, he had the lot, he didnt need speed because even at a snails pace he would leave a guy on his backside wondering what just happened. The guys on this list were in, done and out faster than a News International journalist in the Queens mobile phone records!

That’s flat out incompetent to compile such a list with such glaring omissions.

Id say forget Mario & even 99 and remember when he came into the league, Jagr, with his size, speed, moves and hunger to score every single time he touched the puck, was like an unstoppable prototype from outerspace.

By these standards everyone who is exciting should be someone who takes a lot of skillz competition shots. Maybe some goalies who stop a lot of them. So ^Hobbit Wizard^ and christensen should make that list. Probably Marc Andre Flower. Hank, etc.

Here is my definition of a good owner in New York: 1) He spends money as recommended by the general manager; 2) He does not meddle.

Dolan is a good owner of a New York hockey team.

Larry Brooks of the NY Post.

I would take Dolan the hockey owner over Dolan the basketball owner any day. In any event, Dolan spends his money, he doesn’t hang on to it. Sure, he has hung onto Glen Sather when the team kept missing the playoffs, but he never stopped supplying him with money for a chance to make the team better.

By the way, whatever you think of Gretzky’s speed and skating, if you ever watched him cut right to left and fire a slap shot against the grain and inside the left post, and didn’t go, WTB was that?! … then you can’t be excited by a hockey play.

Or how about the first time he parked in his office and flipped the puck up over the crossbar and in off the goalie’s back?

Carp – the double play tandem of gene Michael and Horace Clarke should make a hockey list…too… They were that great… I know you agree…you tossed out Jerry Kenny last week…. How on god’s earth he was first ballot HoF is beyond me.

Went to my 8 year-old nephew’s first lacrosse “clinic” on Sunday. At one point I notice a group of kids, one decked out in a Kopitar jersey (this is LA), arguing about something. Moments later I walk past one of the boys weeping to his father and screaming “they said Sidney Crosby was a crybaby!” Then, still sniffling, he forced his embarrassed dad to take him home.

A few of the other parents felt bad — but they all agreed: Sidney Crosby and his fans are crybabies.

So, throwing money at the GM and not actually evaluating his performance is being a good owner?

———————————

of course! wouldn’t you love to have a boss like Dolan? Who throws dough around, who closes his eyes on millions of dollars mistakes you make and still lets you keep your job? Who wouldn’t love a boss like that! I bet Sather laughs his butt off every time he comes to work!

This was an obvious attempt on the NHL’s part to drum up some ‘heated discussion’ as to attract viewers. This is where online media has lost credibility because people care more about drama than fact (or at least intelligent opinion). To not include a Lemieux or a Gretzky is just plain absurd. It’s a no-brainer to include those guys on the list. They just wanted people to talk about them NOT being on the list and I guess the mission was accomplished. But it’s the NHL. I’m surprised they did something like this. They typically LOVE including Gretzky whenever they get the chance to do so.

Yeah, comedy…and a plot could be:
Sidney, with his hairless, girlish face, easily could impersonate sister Cindy in her parochial catholic boarding school (which will be rated R) and his sister Cindy will perform unnoticed (everybody get so used to…) his/her whining act on ice with referees and Pissburgh so called fans.

The only name I was able to come up with for the Players’ Twitter Widget is “Kayomama.” She was my aunt’s boss, the same one who worked with Waseka. This is all legitimate stuff, too. If you have suggestions, feed me them.

Hey Carp,
I know theres not a lot to talk about in the hockey world, but what’s going on with Messier? Is he in line for the GM job, coaching job? Just wondering especially since they moved Shoie, and there was no mention of Messier. Just thought it would make for an interesting article, at least just talk to guy and get a take on the Rangers, and where were going at the moment. Another question is does Graves (don’t like using their nicknames it’s not like I know them) have a future in coaching? I know he does a lot with kids hockey, but does he want to move into some kind of coaching position? Doesn’t he help the kids (meaning young ones who make the team) find a place in NY to live, and help them keep there nose clean? Heard that but wasn’t sure.

See ya later,
Cynar

P.S. Think your computer guys could make it were we could create an account, and when we make comments or posts, we can be notified when someone actually reads them and responds or something……..just sayin

I think Rupp is going to be popular here. Might have to reply to one of his tweets and let him know where we are.

Cynar, I don’t know if Messier is actually being groomed to be the next GM. There are a lot of candidates ahead of him, I would think. Graves and he both want to be involved in the management end. I don’t see either being a GM in the immediate future. And I’d think if Graves wanted to coach, he’d have to be coaching somewhere at a lower level now.

Funniest thing about the Cogliano trade is that the Rangers were always rumored to be sending Dubinsky and a pick the other way, and the guy ends up bringing back nothing but a second rounder. Such a joke.

How could Chris Drury go from being a somewhat misguided signing with overburdening expectations that sadly and regrettably had to be bought out to being on the receiving end of some serious venom from Ranger fans?

“Howard Eskin of 610WIP is reporting that the Flyers have some interest in signing Chris Drury at the right price. Given Drury’s past accomplishments, his ties to Danny Briere and his reputation for leadership, it might make some sense. That’s especially true in light of the fact that there’s currently one third-line spot up for grabs on the Flyers. “

By the way nice room with Jagr/Drury/Pronger in it and also love how Paul Holmgren traded away his 2 best players to sign an average goalie and is replacing them with really old beat up guys. No way that’s gonna work out for them.

Yeah I figured Messier or Graves would coach at a lower level, or if Messier was thinking he could one day be a GM he would have to start out low. But I seem to remember there being a lot of WHOPPLA about Messier taking some part in the Rangers organization, but since then we haven’t heard much about him. I mean I hear much more about Graves, and he work with getting young kids involved in hockey or working at hockey camps, but Messier just seems to have disappeared. If I remember correctly Messier’s pretty tall, and bald he would be hard to loose??!!! HaHa

As far as the tech thing, don’t you hold a pretty pretigious position at this place, and can’t you make some guy or tech guy do something?

Quick note about Jagr……just a couple of weeks before he decided to come back weren’t there articles saying the Rangers needed more scoring from the left side? I know some didn’t like the guy, but for the money wouldn’t you say he’s pretty much going to score you at least AT LEAST 20 goals? Would have been a pretty sound investment, plus what he brings to the locker room.

Cynar, what he brings to the locker room is a selfish player who is only worried about himself. He left the Rangers because he wasn’t going to be the highest paid player on the team. I don’t see him scoring more than 15 goals next year.

Hey, you know, it might be a good idea to sign Drury to center Jagr. Too bad the Rangers never thought of that. Oh, wait, they did?

whackamole is wickster’s suggestion for the players’ twitter widget name.

Messier is actually very, very involved in the scouting/development end. He’s working really hard at it, not using his name and status to use this as a cushy, easy-money, no-work job. Sather sends him all over the place … sent him to scout Brad Richards quite a bit, sends him to events like the World Juniors. Hasn’t disappeared at all. Just doing his work behind the scenes and pretty anonymously.

Thanks ORRsie! And Chris, that was a great storyabout the crying kid!
Makes me hope crosby never procreates, can you imagine how those kids would be?
Hot dog/ duck lips, punching other lil kids in the family jewels and the lifelong perpetual whine! Yikes

Horace Clarke ranks just below a rhino in mud as a pivoting second baseman, with Bill Mazeroski a close second. I understand that when Clarke retired from baseball he found a job holding a tin cup for a blind organ grinder. It is said that the blind man had better peripheral vision than Horace, but that’s just a rumor.

I just went to get some food and on my way a girl walking in front of me spun around, yelled, “wait!” and started chasing her friend (whose name was Lauren I guess). I did a sweet spin move to get out of the way.

CARP! Please. Horace Clarke remains one of the biggest jokes ever perpetrated on the major league baseball scene. To put a career .308 OBP man at the top of your lineup for nine years is akin to the Rangers putting Ryan Hollweg at center on the number one line. His career BA is .256. So when you subtract his BA from his OBP you get .052, meaning he walked just 5.2 % of the time. That is akin to a D- in academic terms.

Years ago, in a Baseball Abstract, Bill James took a shot at two players of that time who rarely took a walk to help their respective teams. Those two players were Steve Garvey and Garry Templeton, whom James referred to as “Notoriously selfish ballplayers.” The job of a lead-off man is to get on base to set up the inning for the 3-4-5 power boys coming up. It is not to amass a grotesque strike out total, in lieu of walking to help the team. It is not to hit .256 with no discernible power.

So let’s look at what we have here. Low BA, Lowest lead-off OBP in the major leagues in his day. Scant power. And the ultimate stumble bum in a middle infield skill position requiring considerable dexterity, nimbleness and range. This man was a sick joke. But it is not his fault he had a major league job. Whether he was Ralph Houck’s contribution to “affirmative action,” that is giving a minority person a job when there is a multitude of better qualified candidates who are not minority candidates, is all I can think of. Jerry Lumpe, a reserve with the Yankees in the late ’50’s was infinitely more talented and possessed of ability than Clarke, yet he was shuttled around like so much trash, in deference to the mediocre at best, Bobby Richardson.

Clarke had NOTHING, Carp. He was such a sick joke that Mickey Mantle, probably tired of seeing Clarke drag down the Yankees offense and his potentially higher RBI total, made the ludicrous remark that he would rather see Horace Clarke at the plate in a game situation, than Joe D. or Ted Williams. Horace Clark was the Ryan Hollweg of his day, an oafish Kowalski who brought nothing to the game by way of a hint of a tangible asset. Ralph Houck put the stamp of gross incompetence upon his entire managerial career with this one inexcusable lack of response to a fire burning out of control.

“In Ralph Houck’s first year as manager, 1961, he had a tremendously successful season leading off with Bobby Richardson. Richardson, frankly, was a horrible leadoff man. He rarely got on base and almost never into scoring position. (Fast forward) Ever since then Houck has been leading off with these terrible little second basemen who hit .270, have no power at all, and don’t walk. When Richardson retired Houck’s second baseman was Horace Clarke, a career .256 hitter who walked about as much as (Jerry) Remy does. Horace led the league in at bats twice and had a career high of 82 runs scored.. He was often in the sixties in runs scored, and his worst years, for a man playing a key offensive role, were bizarre. He outlasted Houck in New York by only a few games.”

Horace Clarke was, arguably, the greatest ball player this, or any other, world has ever seen….he was like Gretzky, messier, gordie howe, and johnny O’ Grodnick rolled into one…..he could do it all….hit for power, average….one of the strongest arms (supposedly in BP he hit 70 mph on the radar gun), great range…he could have played the entire infield from 2nd base……He and gene michael formed probably the greatest DP duo in baseball history……plus THE HORACE had speed…..he was on first one game, i blinked, and he was on third…..He was like the CABER on skates….

boom boom -its not like those statistics you quote are facts or even tell the whole story……THE HORACE was simply a beast……sure he only had .256 lifetime BA, but that means his out average was .744…..that is very impressive……also, you must have missed the game when THE HORACE got 2 – count ’em – 2 hits in ONE GAME…..that is like scoring a lot of goals in a hockey game)……or maybe you missed the game when THE HORACE fielded 3 balls cleanly without an error….that is like hank tossing 4 SO in a row…..your statistics and facts are merely a red herring to throw people off the fact that THE HORACE derserves HoF recognition.

Referring to those awful Yankee teams Horace Clarke played with, reminds me of a TV interview with Sparky Anderson I caught, one time, when Sparky was trashing the awful Phillies of 1959, for whom Anderson played second base and hit .218 in his ONE major league season. What Sparky forgot to mention is that he was the WORST player on the team and the primary reason that team lost over 100 games.

The Yankees of 1966 finished 10th and last in the American League. At this point I trust I need not identify the second baseman and leadoff hitter on that team, who was also the worst player on that team, and the man primarily responsible for the last place finish, one-half game out of ninth place.

boom boom – next you are going to tell me that Fritz Petersen wasnt the greatest lefthander to take the mound….or rob whistle wasnt the best Dman the rangers ever had…..you might not remember that in the 85-86 season the little whistle had 4 goals and 2 assists.

Carp, you’re obviously totally right about those guys not being on the list. Maybe they should just change the title of the article to “Most exciting NHL players of all time (other than TGO, Mary-o, and JJ)? Here’s our list”

Joe Morgan was great, in fact, perhaps the second-greatest 2B of all time, apologies to Mr. Gehringer, and Mr. Grich. Had I owned my favorite ball club, the Phillies, a few years ago, I would have wanted either Joe Morgan or Don Sutton for my manger, and I would have resolved it by making Little Joe the manager and giving Sutton the pitching coach position. Great baseball minds, the two of them.

Wow, Eddie x3 if you mean the simple geometric proof of drawing a square inside of a square and finding the areas of them… that’s the only one I have committed to memory. If it’s the same one you mean, I didn’t realize that was Euler (although I’m not surprised).

How about Euler centering Avery and Mersenne? I know Mersenne is a total Euro-pansy, but he was really good in his prime. Let’s Go Rangers!!!!!

Manny, Ralphie didn’t care how you spelled his name, and I see that James spelled it both ways, back and forth. In fact, Ralphie said in an interview one time that whenever he went duck hunting he preferred that his name have a spelling of “Honk.”

I have to agree with Carp. *WAR* is a stupid stat. Mostly because i don’t understand it or care to understand it. I have seen footage and I can see who won what. Stats ignore intangibles and I think baseball is all about intangibles.

Donny Baseball was *great* in his prime but let’s be honest, he was a loser. And remains a loser. I guess Donny was the best in 1985 since he won the MVP….but……Here are some other names:

*Wade Boggs*
Willy McGee
Ricky Henderson
Tony Gwynn
Mike Schmidt (don’t think he was past his prime – he led in HR 84 and 86 as well as other years)

It’s Wins Above Replacement. If you don’t care for the Sabermetric evaluation of players I understand. But there’s a preponderance of evidence that suggests that Mattingly wasn’t the clear cut best player.

And while you might be right that Schmidt was past his prime when Mattingly was in his, they put up very similar numbers throughout Mattingly’s relatively short prime. And even a diminished Schmidt got on base more and had more power. I will admit that Mattingly’s rapid decline is what keeps out of the HOF.

I mentioned this before, but it was 3-4 a.m., so for those who missed it…

I have done voluminous stats re leadoff hitters in an inning, and my numbers, after extensive research, reveal that when the leadoff hitter in an inning reaches base, the average for MLB teams is scoring 7.5 runs per nine innings. When the leadoff hitter is retired, that average drops to 2.5 runs per nine innings. In no other category have I seen such a significant split from high to low. So this leadoff position is paramount and critical to a team’s success.

So that, while it may be true that Clarke or any deficient leadoff man you care to defend, may not have been the worst player on the team, a strong case can be made that since leadoff is the most critical offensive batting order slot, the negative impact to the team of having a deficient leadoff hitter is greater than, say having a paltry-hitting middle infielder batting eighth.

So that it’s a fact that what Ralph should have done, in year one with Clarke, if he insisted upon having him in the lineup, was drop him in the batting order so that he would have been far less damaging to the Yankee offense.

Bill James was the first, and now it is universal, to acknowledge Rickey Henderson the greatest leadoff hitter of all time. Henderson hit for average, power, walked and stole bases like crazy, he was an amazing offensive catalyst. Few in history can even be remotely compared with what Henderson accomplished in the leadoff role. Tim Raines is probably the only comtemporary of Henderson who rates a call. Had the Yankees had Rickey Henderson leading off, in his prime, during the Clarke leadoff years, you would be looking at double digits more wins every season for the ballclub.

So the knock on Clarke, from James and myself, has more to do with his leadoff responsibiltiy and failings, than anything else. He was just over-matched for the job, as is the case for most MLB leadoff hitters, of every era.

Billy – What makes Euler’s square in the square proof of the pythag. is its sheer simplicity…..a school kid understands it….Euler was a beast…last 17 years of his life he was completely blind yet he pumped out out beautifully written manuscripts…perhaps my favorite mathematican….

my brutha – CARPutha….THE HORACE was not as bad as people make him out to be…..i liked him a lot…but those yankee teams were flat out horrid…..the best to come out of it was when Peterson and Kekich traded wives midseason

Eddie, I have not! I will check that out though! Thanks! That site is lots of fun. I registered there and started working on it earlier this year… I haven’t made any time for it recently but I will be getting back to it. It’s totally fun and addictive. Judging by your comments today, the problems on the Euler site are right up your alley!

Ok, back to hockey.

How about Jesus centering Avery and Muhammad? The JAM line! Jesus can walk on water, just wait and see what he does on the ice!

It’s true. If the loading is slow, then it’s not fast and of course, if the loading is fast then it obviously isn’t slow. The question is whether loading is normal and whether normal would be considered fast or slow.

Yeah, that was a dead draft. Half of the first rounders are nowhere to be found in the NHL, let alone second or third…..Yet, Detroit was able to get Jiri Hudler and Valtteri Filppula deep in the second and third round respectively…

MSG is showing a Rangers-Bruins game from 2007. Rozsival just coughed up the puck and forced himself to take a penalty. And before that Jagr set up Prucha, who was stopped. … wait, Prucha actually played?

I don’t think the Caps would be adverse to trading Mike Green to us if we give them whatever it is they are looking for. Not many teams would. He is godawful defensively and there is genuine concern he wont replicate his previous stats without Ovechkin.

This “1 a day” blog’s weakly peeing worm is not so harmless. Being the very definition of “trash” he stinks, like all old trash. Senselessly taking our place and time, his “shtick” becomes distractive annoyance, which exactly his goal is.
Considering that he knows at least numeral adjectives in few languages, read this: Zaebal svoim ustnym schyetom, mudak!

Let’s not forget he’s had Ovechkin converting a lot of those passes, but I won’t take anything away from the guy. When he’s healthy he’s an all-star – offensively.
Defensively? Can be an adventure/ borderline nightmare…

Anyway, if you swapped MDZ for him it might make some crazy kind of sense; two guys with screwed up heads.

Apparently talk of Semin moving isn’t restricted to that one blurb mentioned earlier.
The guy’s name is all over the place as Caps are the OverCaps right now and need to sign their young D, though I think they inked one the other day.

If Rangers could ever swing a deal for both (Wolski @ $4m would have to be included or bought out) and all went well, they might be one helluva balanced, dynamic team.

:D I dunno why but it’s killing me, with the counting, and the changing of the languages, who are you, counting guy? What is your story? I’m not sure if it will get old to me, but I can’t stop laughing.

what’s next, somebody that just posts a different color every time? lol, it’s a cry for attention for sure, but I’m not sure it’s desperate… maybe “one a day” is just trying to build up the courage to reveal his true cause. Sorry to all the people it’s bugging that i’m “encouraging” this behavior. It’s too funny, well, at the moment anyways…

ok, back to some more wacky line combos:

Michael Jordan centering Avery and Brutus the Barber Beefcake. The JAB line! Get your haircut while being amazed at Jordan dunking from the red line and I guess Avery can help you pick out a nice suit.

I dont get the Lepisto rumors. If we are gonna bring another Dman in he automatically should be a right handed shot. Our top Dman prospects all shoot left handed (MDZ, Erixon, McI, Vtank, Ktek).

I think we should pick up Anton Strahlman. He’s kinda crappy on Defense but paired with McD or maybe fellow countryman Tim Erixon he would probably be ok, esp since he’ll likely be a 3rd pair guy anyway. He is a damn fine PP specialist though, putting up 10 of his 18 pts/51 games on the PP last year and 22 of his 34 pts the year before that all the while playing on a crappy Columbus team

Most importantly he shoots righty and is Swedish (which seems to be a big deal lately with this organ-eye-zation)